


Ghost of Christmas Past

by sage_theory (papersage)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:12:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papersage/pseuds/sage_theory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immediately after S7, when Daniel returns from Ascension, Christmas is a bit awkward and neither Daniel or Jack are quite sure of what to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost of Christmas Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slb44](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=slb44).



As always, Daniel chooses the weirdest, least comfortable possible time to broach a weird subject. Jack has mostly gotten used to it over the years, thinking of Daniel's bad timing as God's way of keeping him loose. Because heavens forefend things should become predictable.

You'd think that going through a big honkin' ring to other planets would be mutually exclusive with predictability, but after a while, it happens. You get ambushed some Jaffa, some Tok'ra come to pick you up for a mission that can only end badly, the Asgard occasionally abduct you just to keep the mixture spicy.

Today, Daniel, in his great and geeky wisdom has chosen to start his quest with a relatively harmless sounding, "Jack, can I ask you something?"

Except, it's while they're naked in the showers, Daniel just a few blocks of tile and a shower head to the right of him. Jack has an armpit full of soap and a creeping suspicion that he should just say no.

But it's *Daniel*, and Jack's in a fairly generous mood. They've hit a run of good missions, and one of their offworld allies scored big for them by telling them where to find a small cache of Furling relics - tech included. It had Daniel practically orgasming right there on the briefing room table.

Not that Jack would've minded seeing that at all, but Hammond might have objected. Might. Who knows what kinky stuff the general keeps up there in his chrome dome. Maybe everyone's attracted to Daniel. Maybe Daniel is like the little black dress of the SGC.

"Jack?" Daniel calls again.

Jack realizes he's been soaping up the same armpit for a while, and he's probably got a funny look on his face.

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering if I could ask you something."

"Fire away," Jack says, finally switching to the other side, feeling like he's actually just said 'fire in the hole' - but what the hell. He loves saying that and sometimes blowing stuff up is just plain fun.

"Did we ever -" he looks around as though checking to make sure they're not being watched. Given the expression his face, Jack decides it's not a bad idea to check out the terrain himself. Siler's got a way of being around when you don't realize it. God only knows the stuff that man has eavesdropped on over the years.

"Did we ever what?" Jack asks.

Daniel squints at him, sans glasses, through a roll of rising steam. "Did I celebrate Christmas? Did *we*, you know, ever do anything for Christmas, since we were -" Daniel stops there, because he's either finally remembered or finally learned that while they're in Cheyenne Mountain, there are certain things he cannot say.

Jack's heart sinks a little, he frowns and puts the soap back in it's little dish just underneath the shower faucet. Sticking his head right under the stream of water helps.

God, if he ever runs across Oma Desala, or any of those other Ascended idiots, he's going to give them the bitchslapping of their immortal, incorporeal lives. He doesn't even care that they're not on the same plane of existence. They ever get within shooting distance, and Jack will damn well make them feel it.

Jack gets that they couldn't send Daniel back with all of their Big Cosmic Secrets just floating around in his noggin, but there was no damn reason to erase everything else. There was no reason to wipe away almost four decades of who he'd been, of who he'd loved, of who he was.

Some of those memories, some of those years didn't just belong to Daniel, they belonged to Jack, too.

Some of them, even, were Christmases. Good - no, great - Christmases that were the best since Jack had been a kid.

Jack pulls his head out of the water when he realizes Daniel is staring and looks a little hurt.

"How much do you remember?" he asks, walking the line of neutrality like he's on a tightrope.

Daniel's shrug is like a staff blast right to Jack's soul. He's isn't sure how he's going to explain this to Daniel, because it wasn't like they had a tradition. They didn't even really speak about it, because it had all been understood. Like their whole damn relationship, it was built on glances, and tone of voice, and subtle touches and meaningful nods.

There was so little of it out in the open, and that had been fine when Daniel was Daniel and things were good.

"I think I remember barbeque," Daniel says, chewing on his lip and looking a bit confused. Jack's mouth twitches to a smile at the memory.

Yes, there was barbeque. Two years ago, when Daniel had been the one to give in and come to Jack's house - as opposed to the year before when Jack was waiting at Daniel's door with 90 proof eggnog and the only piece of cooked meat to be had in Colorado Springs at 11:30 on Christmas Eve.

How can Jack explain what it meant to him, to be alone with Daniel in an apartment that was draped with glyphs and Abydonian Spirit Catchers instead of tinsel and mistletoe and spend their days off together? How can he make Daniel remember what it was like?

Jack's memories, which are bitterly sharp and indelible, are full of the taste of eggnog and nutmeg cloying in his mouth and Daniel - loosened by that much alcohol on an empty stomach - pinning him down on the couch and pulling away at his clothes until he was face down, under Daniel, making helpless, whimpering, pleasured noises in his throat, begging, begging, begging.

If Daniel can't remember that, Jack isn't sure he knows how to remind him of it.

"Once, yeah," is all Jack can think to say. Then: "We didn't really have a tradition. We just did whatever we felt like."

"Oh." Daniel looks and sounds a bit let down by this.

"Why?"

"I guess, I thought, since we were...you know."

Jack can't help the open wince at Daniel's use of the past tense.

"Well, you can come on over to my place if you want," Jack offers. God, it shouldn't feel this wooden, this unnatural with Daniel. Like they're about to shake hands or something. "I might even put a tree up this year."

"Okay, sure," Daniel replies, and turns off the water, going in search of his glasses.

Jack puts his head back under the water, turns it down to freezing and shuts his eyes, resting his forehead against the tile. It feels like all of his Christmases got taken away all at once.

He has to hold on to the pipe connected to the shower head, because if he doesn't, he'll slip, he'll fall, he'll scream.

"Colonel O'Neill, are you unwell?" Teal'c asks, as he comes in.

Jack turns off the water. "Just gettin' the soap outta my eyes," Jack lies and keeps showering for another twenty minutes, just so he doesn't have to face Daniel out there in the locker room, getting dressed.

  
****

  
The night is sharply cold, but completely bereft of snow and the moon is a bright, pox scarred silver dollar in the sky. Jack can see Daniel pulling up in the driveway from where he sits on the roof, looking at the stars. He stopped trying to catalog how many he'd actually been to, or at least been in orbit around.

Now, he looks for the old familiar friends, and pretends he doesn't know the truth about them. He pretends that he doesn't know that some of them are already dead, and the light he's seeing are ghosts and specters of the stars that used to be.

God, even astronomy has become depressing.

But that's why Jack has fortified himself with something a little stronger than beer. This year, it's the scotch. The good scotch. The scotch he was saving for the day he got his stars and became a general.

It didn't seem worth saving anymore, not after everything. Better to use it to get through a long, awkward night - better to buy comfort now than try to hold on to things out in the distance.

Maybe he'll never be a general. Maybe he'll die or quit or get fired long before then. Maybe he should have died with Daniel - the pistol is still loaded and sitting in his nightstand in case he's not wrong about that.

At least he can be warm and a little numb now, pretending that Daniel is coming to the door the way he used to. At least he can try to distance the pain of watching Daniel knock, and wait where once he would've barged right in and made himself at home.

Daniel probably doesn't even remember that half the food in Jack's fridge - the real food, not just the beer and hot dogs - was actually for him, not for Jack at all. He probably doesn't remember that he's got a week's worth of clothes, a spare pair of glasses, and two extra toothbrushes here.

Daniel knocks and rings the doorbell, and makes a shivering, teeth chattering noise that forces Jack to get up from where he is, look over the edge of the roof and shout down, "For cryin' out loud, Daniel, it's open!"

Daniel backs up so they can see each other, and he's holding a bag in one hand and a box under the other. Jack finds himself hoping the box is full of beer. Or wine. Or something alcoholic.

"What if I was a robber?" he shouts up to the roof.

"On Christmas Eve?"

Jack can practically hear Daniel chewing on the thought.

"Good point! I got you a present!"

"Excellent!" Jack cackles from the roof, Mr. Burns style. He then remembers to add, "I didn't actually get you anything!"

"That's okay!"

He leaves the roof, stumbles in through his window like a robber who hasn't gotten the hang of it yet and hurries down the stairs, finding that Daniel still waits at the door. Now it's gone from sad to annoying. Jack opens the door and grabs him in by the collar of his coat, causing him to give a noise of alarm in response. At least this way, he doesn't have to watch Daniel enter as though he's a stranger in a house that was half his once upon time.

"I told you it was open. What's that?" He points to the bag.

Daniel tells him, "Barbeque. I didn't know what to bring since you said that we didn't really have a tradition or anything, but you seemed like you liked barbeque. And the place was open."

Jack nods and takes the bag from him, making for the kitchen with Daniel following him. "Sweet. Hey did you get some of the ribs, the ones with the sauce?"

"Even I remembered that much," Daniel replies with a roll of his eyes, putting the box down on the kitchen table when Jack goes to get some plates and forks so they can devour their Christmas dinner.

Jack rustles through the bag, catching a waft of hot meat and sauce that makes his mouth water. Although, he'll need at least another two fingers of Scotch to keep his buzz going if he starts eating. And Daniel is smiling as though he's still not sure what to do, like a kid politely waiting for permission. It makes Jack all the more sure of his decision to keep a nice thick layer of alcohol in between him and Daniel this Christmas.

"You plan on eating from there?" he asks, and gets flashed him a quick, apologetic smile before Daniel approaches the table.

Suddenly unable to handle it all, he makes an excuse to get napkins. It is more than he can handle to met shyness in those blue eyes where once Daniel had such given such bold and reckless looks, all half-cocked determination that ignored nay saying and good sense. When it came to Jack, Daniel was as unstoppable he was when he entered temples they hadn't yet secured, or went into negotiate with sketchy alien natives Jack would just have soon shot at.

This careful, distanced man before him is not Daniel. It's just the remnant of him, a light still traveling through space long after the source has burned up all it's fuel and gone.

But that's Jack's world now, maybe. A world of old lights and ghosts.

Then he turns around and finds that Daniel has snuck up on him while he gathered paper towels, because he doesn't actually own napkins. Daniel is intrepidly close this time and Jack is almost startled by seeing, behind his glasses, in the steady way he levels his eyes only raises the corners of his mouth a little, a spitting image of the man he loved.

Hands reach out and take Jack by his collar, pull him in. Daniel's lips are soft and warm and they press, without permission or hesitation. There is no apology this time, only taking.

Jack kisses back, takes back, touches back, lacing fingers through Daniel's hair - oh god, still soft in the back like he remembers, like he was when he was *his* Daniel. He kisses until oxygen becomes more of an issue than his need, which takes a long, long while because he's so very good at holding his breath. In his life, you have to be.

Daniel steps back, and Jack swears to god he will fall apart right there if Daniel falters, apologizes, or so much as swerves from certainty.

"I'm sorry, Jack," he whispers, and Jack really wishes somebody would just put a bullet to his brain, because now he's done. It's official. Sign it and stamp it. He, Jack O'Neill, can no longer live this way, constantly assaulted with reminders of the man who he loved more than he imagined himself capable of and reminders of his passing.

"Daniel," he says, shutting his eyes. If this is dying, he really hopes it doesn't take long because it fucking well *hurts*. "Please, don't. I can't - I -"

"I'm sorry I don't remember everything, Jack. I'm trying, I *really* am," Daniel tells him, and Jack's eyes fly open when he hears a complete lack of any kind of apology in that voice. If anything, Daniel sounds angry. Pissed. Intent. Determined.

He sounds like _Daniel_. The guy who could put a platoon of marines in their place and make even Jack himself back off, back down, back out.

"I know."

"If you don't want this anymore, just tell me," Daniel says, and god his voice could bend steel bars right now. "Because I can't do this. If me losing my memory was too much, just *say it* already. The way you look at me, lately, like you were expecting someone else - I don't think I can take it anymore. I can't take wondering."

Jack casts his eyes to the floor, to their feet, just a millimeter apart from touching. It's kind of a good metaphor for something, but right now his brain isn't working and his chest feels like someone sucking his breath out with a vacuum. "Wondering what?"

"If you still love me!" Daniel shouts, strong, enthusiastic gestures included.

Jack nearly chokes just saying Daniel's name and that's all he can get out of his mouth.

Trust Daniel to know what to do with the silence. "Because I love you. That much I *know*. You have no idea how many things didn't make sense until I realized that. God, Jack. Do you have any idea how many times I've wanted to just -" He just makes a growling noise. "But I didn't know if you still wanted it, or if I just dreamed everything that I thought I remembered about us?"

Jack's heard all he's ever going to need to hear, ever. For the first time since he watched Daniel vanish into light, he knows that Daniel really, really is back. Maybe he's got some scars and some bits are missing - hey, he isn't exactly in mint condition either - but he's *Daniel*. *His* Daniel.

He pulls Daniel back in and doesn't let his mouth move until he's sure that Daniel will stop talking and start kissing.

Maybe Daniel will never remember all their past Christmases, or even all their past. Maybe there are some memories that will remain Jack's alone. But if that means there's more space in Daniel, more places for more Christmases that they *will* have and fights they will fight and times when, like now, they'll end up on the kitchen floor, stripping off clothes so desperately it's almost violent and Daniel still smells like the cold and already has his mouth on Jack's cock because it stood at attention the minute he heard that frustrated, passionate, lust-sodden growl and Jack is once again making those noises, the ones that he can't control, wonderfully, blissfully helpless because Daniel has this hold over him and if he has his way, he won't ever let go.

\- THE END -


End file.
